"Since I left my job at Amazon I have spent a lot of time reading great source code. Having exhausted the insanely good idSoftware pool, the next thing to read was one of the greatest game of all time: Duke Nukem 3D and the engine powering it named 'Build'. It turned out to be a difficult experience: The engine delivered great value and ranked high in terms of speed, stability and memory consumption but my enthousiasm met a source code controversial in terms of organization, best practices and comments/documentation. This reading session taught me a lot about code legacy and what helps a software live long." Hail to the king, baby.

I'm sure everybody has seen that diagram showing the diff between today's shooters and the games then, how then it was huge expanses filled with secrets while today you are led by the nose from one set piece to the next in a straight line?

I think reasons for that are varied... might be also technical, the old-style engine necessitating more "compacted" (more ~square) maps. Or it reflects what players mostly want, just to kill monsters and bad guys; also more varied scenery (instead of going back and forth on one map all the time - more quickly boring scenery in a way).

But I remember reviews from 2 decades ago - mostly filled with walkthroughs, and... lists of secrets (even worse with adventure game walkhroughs). That wasn't the best way to game.

Overall it's what... we wanted back then, the general public acceptance of our games, for them to have mainstream appeal. And/or you're getting old - old times are always better

GOG [...] just for joining you can get something like 6 games for free just as a thank you for trying them out which includes warsow and Ultima 4.